


the sharpest edge always leads back to you

by Hideous_Sun_Demon



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Animal Abuse, Animal Death, Attempted murder lol, Ben’s Death, Character Study, Child Abuse, Diego Hargreeves being angry at the world but more specifically his father because fuck that guy, Gen, Scarring, Season 2 spoilers, Self Harm, Suicidal Ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:55:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26043067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hideous_Sun_Demon/pseuds/Hideous_Sun_Demon
Summary: Diego, his father, and knives: a history.
Relationships: Diego Hargreeves and Reginald Hargreeves
Comments: 10
Kudos: 63





	the sharpest edge always leads back to you

**Author's Note:**

> This is pretty fucked, ngl. Trigger warning for everything listed in the tags. Diego is my knife bby and he deserves the world but instead I give him this.

When Diego is four, Reginald gives him his first knife.

The presentation is the first test, though Diego doesn’t realise that until, much, much later. How could he? He’s just excited about his new toy that’s big and shiny and all his own, so he doesn’t have to share with Luther or Allison or anyone! Diego is four, and he is still young enough to look at Reginald and see his daddy holding out a present; to never even think that he’s meant to be anything but excited. He doesn’t hesitate; he grabs for the sharp end, and the blade slices through his chubby palms like butter.

Diego hasn’t learnt about the sharp edges in life yet. He is four years old.

“It seems your training must begin with proper blade handling techniques. And stop crying, Number Two. You will never learn anything until you can control your emotions.”

* * *

When Diego is eight, he learns how to hate his father.

He’s learning things every day. Training is relentless, and has been since the day when he was four and he first learnt the feeling of metal sinking into flesh, the bite of broken trust. Dad teaches them a dozen different fighting techniques; the easiest way to knock someone unconscious, or more. They study languages and organic chemistry and ballroom dancing. They learn how to extricate themselves from locked rooms and straitjackets—“One must always have an exit strategy in mind,” Dad tells them. It turns out that it’s pretty easy to dislocate your own shoulder, as long as you don’t think about it too much. The tricky part is popping it back into place.

It’s not all miserable, though. Children can find little pockets of joy in anything. One morning, they wake up to find a bird cage towering in the main sitting room, six canaries hopping on their perches and chirping out the gentlest sound to ever come through the house. Dad tells them that the care of these birds is an exercise in diligence and responsibility, that they must learn to value the care of lives other than their own if they are to ever effectively protect each other when they begin their missions. All the children hear is that they’re finally allowed to have pets. 

For once, their training doesn’t turn into a cutthroat competition. Every day, they wake up early and scramble downstairs to feed the birds. Luther dutifully pours a little pile of birdseed into each of their palms, even Vanya’s, and in the peaceful morning quiet they let the birds peck away as they stroke their tiny heads and excitedly toss around name ideas. Diego names his canary Custard; he lets her ride around on the ridge of his thumb and practices his whistling by mimicking her cheery little tunes.

Diego has his own personal training too. Every day, hour upon hour, he sends knives whistling through the air to reach their mark. Hitting targets on the ceiling, behind corners, blindfolded, in the dark, with one arm tied behind his back—Diego never misses. He learns to love the soft _thunk_ of a metal blade sinking into wood, finding its home.

Today, when Dad takes him aside for his one-on-one, there are no targets in the room. Just Custard, wobbling her way along the back of a chair, uncaged, alone.

“Begin, Number Two,” Dad says, pen poised atop his notebook.

Diego shifts his weight from one leg to another, clasping and unclasping his favourite knife from his harness and trying to find comfort in the slick hiss of metal. “There aren’t any targets.”

Dad sighs, adjusting his monocle’s glare down on him. “Inanimate targets are acceptable for honing speed and precision, but they will not prepare you for the living adversaries which I am preparing you to face. Now, proceed.”

Custard trills out a single clean note. It’s all that Diego can hear over the blood roaring in his ears. He shakes his head, because he can already feel his words tripping over themselves in the back of his throat, and ignores Dad’s yells for him to _get back here this instant_ as he bolts from the room.

That night, before dinner, Dad launches into a speech about the goal of the Umbrella Academy, about how their abilities are humanity’s most sophisticated defence against the evils of the world, so long as those that wield them aren’t too weak to overcome their own selfishness and fear. Nobody looks at him as he speaks. They’re probably flicking their gazes around the table, trying to figure out who screwed up today, but Diego, face hot, doesn’t bother looking to see. His eyes are on the table leg as he works a groove into it with his knife, deeper, and deeper, and deeper—They’re halfway through their silent meal when he shoves his chair back and storms out, heading for the sitting room and the cage taking pride of place in the centre. 

Diego uses his favourite knife. He listens for that soft thud. He doesn’t miss.

Klaus shrieks and Allison swears—a very impressive eight-year-old swear—when Diego marches back into the dining room, right up to Dad’s chair at the head of the table, and hurls that tiny, yellow body right on top of his half eaten steak. 

“T-t-t-there!” he screams—not with the fury for the things his father makes him do, but for the things he makes himself do for his father. For the way he still peers into his father’s eyes for any sign of approval as the blood dries on his small hands. He doesn’t cry, though. He’s been learning not to do that.

Vanya does cry, for a whole week, and Luther shoves him so hard that he can still feel the hand-shaped bruise nearly a month after, but Diego notices that as time passes, all the canaries slowly disappear from the cage. They never talk about them again.

* * *

When Diego is thirteen, he realises that he still doesn’t understand his father, because even after everything he never thought that Dad could go this far.

_Thud._

They’ve entered a new phase of his training now. Dad has this theory: if Diego can manipulate the projectiles he throws, then it’s possible he can do the same to projectiles aimed at him. 

_Thud._

So far, it isn’t working out.

_Thud._

_Picture the word in your mind._ Mum’s voice pulls at his thoughts, advice for how to untangle his tongue from his terror. He tries to do the same thing now. Diego squeezes his eyes shut and pictures himself whisking the knife out his father’s hand, whipping it past where he’s strapped to the wall and off, off, and away into the dark. But when he opens them again all he can see is his father’s steady throwing arm, Vanya in the background with a stopwatch in hand, the gleam of light on flying metal. All he can feel is his gasping chest straining against the straitjacket that he isn’t allowed to escape. All he can hear is the—

_Thud._

As the blades land closer—

_Thud._

And closer—

_Thud._

“Control your emotions, Number Two,” Dad’s voice booms. “Use them as a catalyst for your actions.” And Diego hates him and hates him and hates him and none of it is controlled. Vanya is crying somewhere in the room, and Diego hates her a little too, hates that she has the luxury of being scared for him and not for herself, but even that isn’t enough. 

_Thud._

The crack of splintering wood sounds like a bomb going off in his ear. Diego has tried hate—has been trying it for years now, wearing it like a second skin—but there’s only so much hate a thirteen year old boy can hold in his body. Now all he has left is fear. “It’s not working,” he calls out, voice trembling. Dad doesn’t answer.

_Thud._

“I can’t do it!” Diego cries, but this isn’t a room he can storm out of. Dad isn’t going to let him give up so easily this time. He lines up another knife.

_Thud._

This one sinks into the wooden panelling an inch from his right ear. The only person in the world who comes close to matching Diego in marksmanship is his father. He had to learn from the best, after all.

“Dad, p-please. I can’t do it! I’m so-s-s-sorry, I c-ca-can’t—“

_Thud._

And Diego learned not to cry a long time ago, but when there’s blood pouring down the right side of his face and no air in his chest and nobody in the world to hold him, sometimes he forgets.

Mum says it’ll scar. Diego will run his fingers over the bumpy stitches later, breath fogging up the mirror on the bathroom, and try not to care. Scars are badass—super sexy, like Klaus told him. Doesn’t matter how he got it. He touches his first battle wound and tries to feel proud. Tries to feel like anything but a failure.

“You could have killed him,” Vanya had sobbed as she’d helped Dad unstrap him from the wall, the first time Diego has ever heard his sister speak up against their father. Even then, Diego remembers thinking that Vanya really didn’t understand anything at all. Diego had never been in danger of dying; Dad had known exactly what he was aiming for. Somehow, that makes it so much worse.

* * *

When Diego is fifteen, he starts thinking about exit strategies.

He’s not some little kid anymore; he understands the meaning of sharp things. The world tries to grab hold of him, and he slices into its palms. He sneers insults at Vanya over breakfast, he tussles with Luther until they’re both bruised and bleeding and have forgotten what play-fighting even used to look like, he slams his bedroom door in Klaus’ gaunt face. He cuts through the bonds holding him like taffeta until they lie in a threaded mess around him. He hides in a broody teenage storm of his own making, alone in his room, and dares to dream. Thinks about packing a bag with his knives and his books and the sweater than Mum knitted for him and giving himself to the streets instead, to the world that Dad always told them they were supposed to protect. 

Being a hero is all Diego knows how to do, but he still doesn’t feel like there’s enough hero in him to do it alone, not yet. His scar still throbs when it’s cold, reminding him of everything he isn’t capable of.

But there are other ways to escape.

Diego sits on his windowsill at night and runs the flat side of his favourite knife down his wrist, tracing over the vivid umbrella tattoo and trailing down to chase the blue map of his veins. _Always have an escape strategy._ It’s a sick sort of joy, imagining how he could use his father’s words against him. How easy it would be to escape his control forever. There couldn’t be a better punishment than taking away these quick hands and sharp eyes and perfect aim, the beating heart of Number Two; the only parts of himself that his father ever cared about. He could make it count—he never misses, after all.

He digs his knife into the soft crook of his elbow, just once, just to get a taste for it. The blood smeared on his blade winks up at him, and he wonders which of his siblings would be the one to find him lying in all of it. He imagines Mum having to spend the whole day scrubbing that dark, rusted residue of him out of the floorboards.

He puts the knife away.

* * *

When Diego is seventeen, Ben is seventeen as well, and that’s the oldest his brother will ever be.

There’s no room for rage or hate at first; all that space is filled up with the memory of Ben’s dead weight in his arms, the copper smell that rolls off his brother and seeps into the folds of his skin and leaves his uniform stiff and black as cardboard. He scrubs his stained skin under the showerhead for hours; Mum says she’ll have to throw out the clothes.

It comes roaring back at the funeral, though—with Diego, it always finds a way. He stands under a flurry of snowflakes, his brother’s coffin in front of him, his father hurling the blame at their feet, and he feels the icy downfall seep into his brain. This isn’t an adolescent blaze of heat—this is black and cold and deadly.

His father walks away from them after the funeral, back towards the house, and silently, Diego follows. Dad cuts cleanly through the sheets of white snow; a dark monolith. The tall shadow contains multitudes of memories. Diego thinks of Ben’s blood-sodden hair pressed against his cheek, of the scream of pure anguish Vanya had let out as they arrived back home bearing him in their arms. He thinks of the way Klaus shrinks away from shadows and sobs at night, sometimes, when he thinks nobody is listening. He thinks of Mum wandering the halls at night without a room of her own. Of his own aching scars; the screaming pleas of a thirteen year old, a four year old boy’s tattered palms.

He thinks, and he thinks, and he knows in that moment—long fingers curling around the hilt of his knife—that he could kill his father. One blade is all it would take, a swift path to his jugular. Diego never misses unless he wants to, and—god, he doesn’t want to. That realisation settles down somewhere cold and dark inside him, and it’s then that Diego knows he has to leave. 

He hurls words at his father instead of knives, screaming until he’s blue in the face. He packs his bag—knives, books, sweater—kisses his mum goodbye, walks out the door and never looks back. He’s ready to be a hero now—but even years later, he never quite figures out how he could tell; if it was the knowledge that he could kill his father, or the choice he made not to.

* * *

When Diego is twenty-nine, his father thrusts a knife into his gut and leaves him to bleed out on the cold stone ground. It’s the sight of his father’s face that makes him hesitate, leaves him open to the blade, and all he can think as the world fades away is that he has never, ever learned his lesson.


End file.
